Reading Archives

May 1, 2017

Jonathan Andersen
has recently completed Rage for Me, his first young adult novel, and Augur, his second full-length collection of poetry. He is the author of Stomp and Sing (Curbstone Press, 2005) and the editor of the anthology Seeds of Fire: Contemporary Poetry from the Other U.S.A. (Smokestack Books-UK, 2008). His poems have appeared in many periodicals, including The Cafe Review, Connecticut Review, Counterpunch, Exposition Review, Freshwater, The Progressive, and Rattle, among others. He also has work forthcoming in The Chiron Review, Common Ground Review, and The Worcester Review. A professor of English at Quinebaug Valley Community College, he lives in Storrs with his wife, fellow writer and educator Denise Abercrombie, and their two sons Kit and Miles.

Mollie Kervick
is a PhD student in English and Irish literature at the University of Connecticut, where she concentrates in contemporary women's writing, feminist theory, and motherhood studies. She is currently working on a project that explores vampires, breastfeeding, and the Irish nation. Mollie also writes poetry and creative nonfiction. Her work has been published in places such as The Paradise Review, Torrid Literature Journal, and Kneejerk Magazine. She has also been published on the website IrishCentral (at irishcentral.com).

Matthew Winkler's
passion for teaching and learning has propelled him twice around the world and through all fifty states. He currently teaches English, Robotics, and Invention Convention at The Rectory School while gathering material for a YA bestseller. Matt's popular TED-Ed Lesson "What Makes a Hero?" evolved into his newly released book Mentoring Teenage Heroes: The Hero's Journey of Adolescence.

April 3, 2017

John Surowiecki
is a UConn alumnus and the author of four poetry collections and seven chapbooks. He has won a number of poetry prizes, including the Poetry Foundation Pegasus Award, the Pablo Neruda Award, and the Washington Prize. John’s work has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Carolina Review, Mississippi Review, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Southern Review, West Branch, and many other journals.

Melissa Wyse
is a fiction writer living in Pomfret, CT. She has been awarded fellowships at the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She will also hold a residency at Ragdale this summer. She is the recipient of the Myra Sklarew Award and an Individual Artist Ruby Grant from the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Shenandoah, Urbanite, and decomP. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from American University. Melissa is currently completing a collection of linked short fiction set in World War II Hawaii titled Moon Over Sand Island. In addition to her work as a writer, Melissa also serves as an educator and arts administrator. She teaches writing at Pomfret School, manages the Silver Circle Art Center in Pomfret, and is the founder and Director of Idlewild Arts, which hosts the annual Idlewild Writers Retreat here in Connecticut each autumn.

Gerda Walz-Michaels
was born in Northern Germany. She studied English and pedagogy at the University of Hamburg and also taught there. In 1984, she moved to the U.S. At UConn, she received an MA in Judaic studies and education and a PhD in education. She has taught at various colleges in Connecticut. In 2000, she wrote "My Country," her first poem, which won first prize in the Windham Poetry Festival. In 2011, she published "The Ocean Carries Me," her first book of poetry. "Stone Walls" (Antrim House), her second book, followed in 2015. She lives with her husband in Storrs. She has three children who live in Germany and two step-daughters in the U.S. She makes regular visits to Germany.

March 6, 2017

Julie Shigekuni
is the author of four novels: A Bridge Between Us (Anchor, Doubleday, 1995), Invisible Gardens (St. Martin's Press, 2003), and Unending Nora (Red Hen Press, 2008). Her fiction has been translated into German, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian. Shigekuni was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award and the recipient of the PEN Oakland Josephine MIles Award for Excellence in Literature. She has received a Henfield Award and an American Japanese Literary Award for her writing. She is currently a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of New Mexico.

Brian Sneeden's
Last City, a collection of poems, is forthcoming from Carnegie Mellon University Press (2018). His work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Harvard Review, TriQuarterly, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other publications. Translations of his poems have appeared in international magazines in Greek, Albanian, and Serbian. He received his MFA from the University of Virginia, where he held a Poe/Faulkner Fellowship in creative writing. He is Senior Editor of New Poetry in Translation.

Christine Kalafus's
essays have appeared in The Woven Tale Press, The Writer in the World, and PAGE Arts Journal. "I Hear You Make Cakes," performed at Laugh Boston, was selected by The Moth for its podcast. Blueprint for Daylight is Christine's memoir-in-progress. It's a story of survival: from her husband's affair, a cancer diagnosis, twins, and the water in her basement - all determined to swallow her whole.

February 6, 2017

Pegi Deitz Shea
is the two-time Winner of the Connecticut Book Award and the author or more than 400 published articles, essays, and poems for adult readers. Her works for young readers (poetry, fiction and nonfiction picture books, and novels) frequently focus on human rights issues. Her poetry for adults has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, The Slag Review, and Connecticut River Review. More pieces are forthcoming in Forgotten Women, published by Grayson Press, and Earth's Daughters. She teaches in the creative writing programs at the University of Connecticut and at the Mark Twain House in Hartford.

Gint Aras (Karolis Gintaras Žukauskas)
lives in Oak Park, Illinois with his family. He's a community college instructor, photographer, and has worked as an editor, columnist, interpreter, and translator.

Meghan Evans
graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with an MFA in Creative Writing. She is a teacher at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts in Hartford and a Professor of Literature at Central Connecticut State University.

December 5, 2016

Emily Lyon
received her MFA from Southern Connecticut State University. She's looking for a home for her first novel, an account of an American woman living in Tel Aviv during the Second Intifada. She taught creative writing for a couple of years, but she now runs a record shop (recordsthegoodkind.com) and works as a flight attendant. She writes about flying in the first person.

Meghan Evans
earned her BA in English and Creative Writing from Trinity College and her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. She is a Professor of Literature at Central Connecticut State University and an Artist Instructor in the Creative Writing Department at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. She also spent some time abroad with a writing residency in Wales. She is currently working on a YA novel.

Jeremy Schwartz
is the rabbi of Temple Bnai Israel in Willimantic, CT and an avid translator of Hebrew literature, especially poetry. He is a recipient of The American Literary Translators Association Conference Fellowship and has published translations of the works of two pioneers of non-Orthodox Israeli spirituality: A.D. Gordon and Ari Elon.

November 7, 2016

Christopher Morris
is a history and English major at Eastern Connecticut State University, the Writing Program Assistant (AKA right-hand man) at ECSU’s writing center, and an employee at Elephant Rock Books. He is also President of the Eastern Writers Guild and Editor-in-Chief of Eastern Exposure, ECSU's literary magazine in which he has twice published his short fiction. Chris is currently working on edits to Three Hours, his first novel.

Eleanor Reeds
is a doctoral candidate in the Department of English at the University of Connecticut, where she also works as a coordinator in the Writing Center. Her poems have appeared in Long River Review, and she won the 2016 Wallace Stevens Student Poetry Prize. Eleanor was raised in the UK and is currently working on her first chapbook, a Penelopiad provincially titled, Reading Tarot Cards at Wayne Franklin's House.

Aimee Pozorski
is author of Roth and Trauma: The Problem of History in the Later Works and Falling After 9/11: Crisis in American Art and Literature. She has edited Roth and Celebrity, the Critical Insights volume on Philip Roth, and the forthcoming Roth After Eighty. Aimee is Professor of English at Central CT State University, where she also directs the MA Program in Literature. She is currently at work on a creative project entitled It's Nothing You Did.

October 3, 2016

Emily Howard:
The captain of a losing field hockey team at Madonna High School. A Romanian landlady who baked donuts for her tenants. A stage mom for a one-eyed, snaggle-toothed cat. A senior reporter who investigated an eco-retreat on a Brazilian island. A Scottish coal miner who ran numbers in a Pennsylvania steel mill. Emily Howard is a retired physician who likes to write stories and poems.

Edmond Chibeau
is a performance writer. He believes we are Microchip Aboriginals living in the Ur civilization of the Digital Age. His work has been published in The Nation, Multicultural Review, New England Theatre Journal, The World, EAR Magazine, California Quarterly, and Santa Barbara News and Review. His work has been performed at the Lincoln Center's Bruno Walter Hall, the Knitting Factory, The Ear Inn, Real Art Ways, the Windsor Art Center, and Hygienic Art. He has worked with John Cage, Alison Knowles, Kenneth Rexroth, Allen Ginsberg, and Charles Bernstein, among others. He teaches scriptwriting at Eastern Connecticut State University.

Matthew Winkler's
passion for teaching and learning has propelled him twice around the world and through all fifty states. He currently teaches English, Robotics, and Technology of Design at The Rectory School while gathering material for a YA bestseller. Matt’s popular TED-Ed lesson “What Makes a Hero?” evolved into his forthcoming book, Mentoring Teenage Heroes: The Hero's Journey of Adolescence.

September 12, 2016

Jilly Gagnon
has had her writing featured in Elle, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Hairpin, The Toast, and The Rumpus, among others. She is currently at work on both a humor book and a young adult novel.

Raouf Mama
is a Faculty Row Super Professor and a Distinguished Professor of English at Eastern Connecticut State University. He is the only one in the world today who tells folktales from his native Benin in English, French, Yoruba, and Fon. He is the author of five books: Why Goats Smell Bad and Other Stories from Benin; Pearls of Wisdom; The Barefoot Book of Tropical Tales; Why Monkeys Live in Trees, winner of the 2008 National Multicultural Children's Book Award; and Fortune's Favored Child, a memoir. He will be reading from his forthcoming e-book It Was a Beautiful Day and Other Personal Quiet Miracle Stories.

Joan Seliger Sidney
is the author of Bereft and Blessed, Body of Diminishing Motion: Poems and a Memoir (an Eric Hoffer Finalist, 2015) and The Way the Past Comes Back. She has received individual artist poetry fellowships from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation, the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, and the Vermont Studio Center. She is the recipient of a Visiting Faculty Fellowship from Yale. She’s Writer-in-Residence at the University of Connecticut’s Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life. In addition, she facilitates "Writing for Your Life," an adult writing workshop.

June 6, 2016

Lisa C. Taylor
is the author of the short story collection Growing a New Tail and four collections of poetry. Lisa’s honors include the 2015 Hugo House New Works Award, Pushcart nominations in both fiction and poetry, and a Best Indie Lit of New England nomination. Alongside Geraldine Mills, she presented at the Elizabeth Shanley Gerson Irish Literature Reading at the University of Connecticut in 2011. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous journals, including WomenArts Quarterly Journal and Worcester Review.

Diane Vivona
is thrilled to be making her debut at the Roar Reading Series. Her writing has appeared in Gallery Crawl, The Dance Insider, and The Movement Research Journal. On a daily basis, she writes and advocates for contemporary art in the hope that more people will come to know and love it. Currently, she does this at the New Museum in New York City.

David Capella
is a poet and Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University. He has co-authored two widely used poetry textbooks: Teaching the Art of Poetry: The Moves and A Surge of Language: Teaching Poetry Day to Day. He was the featured poet in the 2014 summer issue of Italian Americana and released his latest novel, Kindling, in December 2015.

May 2, 2016

April 18, 2016

Meghan Evans
earned her BA in English and Creative Writing from Trinity College and her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. She is a Professor of Literature at Central Connecticut State University and an Artist Instructor in the Creative Writing Department at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. She recently returned from a writing residency in Wales. She is currently working on a YA novel.

March 7, 2016

Daniel Donaghy
is the author of four poetry collections, including Start with the Trouble, which won the 2010 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence and was a finalist for the Milton Kessler Poetry Award. He also authored Streetfighting, which was a finalist for the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize. His writing has appeared in The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, New Letters, The Southern Humanities Review, Quarterly West, The Missouri Review, and many others. Both his poetry and fiction have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He is a Professor of English at Eastern Connecticut State University, which recently awarded him its 2015 Board of Regents Faculty Teaching Award.

Susan Schoenberger
of West Hartford, CT is a writer, editor, and copy editor with a long history of working for news organizations. Susan is now the Director of Communications for Hartford Seminary and teaches occasionally at the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford. Her short stories have been published in Inkwell and various other publications. Her debut novel won the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition in 2006. Her work in progress is tentatively titled, "Under the Rainbow." Please check out her website (susanschoenberger.com), follow her on Twitter @schoenwriter, and/or like her Facebook page (Susan Schoenberger Author).

December 7, 2015

Steve Ostrowski
is a poet, fiction writer, and songwriter. He's published two chapbooks of poems (In Late Fields, from Bright Hill Press; and Birds, Boys, God, from Finishing Line Press) as well as a chapbook of stories (A Pile of Crosses, from ELJ Publications). His first novel, The Last Big Break, is scheduled for publication in 2016 from Double Life Press. He teaches at Central Connecticut State University.

Anne D'Alleva
is an art historian and mother of three. When she's not balancing the scholarly and the familial, she is Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut; head of the Department of Art and Art History; and chair of UConn Reads, the university's community reading project.

Larry Druckenbrod
has been a college administrator, a headhunter, a bookseller, a career counselor, and an aspiring writer. He hopes to cap his working life as the shortstop for the Yankees.

November 2015
CCSU Night

Leslie McGrath
is the author of Opulent Hunger, Opulent Rage, a poetry collection; and two chapbooks, Toward Anguish and By the Windpipe. McGrath's latest book is a satiric novella in verse entitled, Out From the Pleiades. She teaches creative writing and literature at CCSU and is series editor of The Tenth Gate.

Tom Hazuka
has published three novels, over fifty short stories, and a book of nonfiction entitled, A Method to March Madness: An Insider’s Look at the Final Four. He has edited or co-edited six anthologies of short stories: Flash Fiction, Flash Fiction Funny, Sudden Flash Youth, You Have Time for This, A Celestial Omnibus: Short Fiction on Faith, and Best American Flash Fiction of the 21st Century (Shanghai, China). He teaches fiction writing at Central Connecticut State University.

October 2015

Jonas Zdanys
is a bilingual poet and translator and author of forty-four books. He has received a number of prizes, book awards, writing and travel grants, and public recognitions for his own poetry and for his translations. He has taught at the State University of New York and at Yale University. He was a scholar-in-residence at the Yale Center for Russian and East European Studies. He is currently Professor of English and poet-in-residence at Sacred Heart University, where he teaches seminars on modern poetry and directs the program in creative writing. Learn more at jonaszdanys.org.

September 2015

Christopher Torockio
is the author of Floating Holidays, a novel, and of two collections of stories, most recently The Truth at Daybreak. His short fiction has appeared in The Antioch Review, Denver Quarterly, The Gettysburg Review, The Iowa Review, Willow Springs, and many other publications. He teaches at Eastern Connecticut State University.

Ron Farina
served in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. He earned a B.A. at Central Connecticut State University and is currently pursuing an MFA at Southern Connecticut State University. Farina's essay "A Keyhole" was featured on NPR and published in In-Country and Back. His award winning short story Unbreakable Embrace was published by the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy. He’s currently seeking publication for a collection of short stories based on his tour in Vietnam.

June 2015

Sergio Troncoso
is the author of five books. The Nature of Truth is a novel about a young researcher at Yale who discovers that his boss, a renowned professor, hides a Nazi past. Troncoso is a resident faculty member of the Yale Writers’ Conference and an instructor at the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center.

Anne D'Alleva
is an art historian and mother of three. When she's not balancing the scholarly and the familial, she is Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut; head of the Department of Art and Art History; and chair of UConn Reads, the university's community reading project.

Carol Dowd-Forte
is authoring her own coming-of-middle-age tale. Carol is president of A Girl's Gotta Eat: Writing and Editing for a Price; founder of The Alley, a writers' support group; and a former stringer for the Miami Herald. She has given a TEDx Talk, performed stand-up comedy, hates the color pink, and has survived both the New York City public schooling and transit systems. Before becoming a writer, she was a zygote.

May 2015

Mary Collins
worked for twenty years in Washington, D.C. for National Geographic, the Smithsonian, and others. Her last book, American Idle: A Journey Through Our Sedentary Culture, won the Grand Prize in Nonfiction at the Indie Book Awards. She's working on a series of essays that explore raising a transgender child. Her essay "Mapping Modern Grief" recently appeared in the Potomac Review. She teaches at Central Connecticut State University.

Emily Lyon
received her MFA from Southern Connecticut State University. She's looking for a home for her first novel, an account of an American woman living in Tel Aviv during the Second Intifada. She taught creative writing for a couple of years, but now runs a record shop (recordsthegoodkind.com) and works as a flight attendant. She writes about flying in the first person.

Jilly Gagnon
has had her writing featured in Elle, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Hairpin, The Toast, and The Rumpus, among others. She is currently at work on both a humor book and a young adult novel.

April 2015

Mark Ferguson's
debut novel, The Lost Boys Symphony, was published by Little Brown & Co. on March 24th. A bit of a genre-bender, this time-traveling coming-of-age story is infused with the angst of mental illness and young love. It was named a Spring 2015 Barnes & Noble Discover Pick. Kirkus says, "This book, like good music, will sweep you up." His novel-in-progress, tentatively entitled, The Empathy Machine, again uses a science fiction conceit--in this case a form a virtual reality--to examine questions about identity, sanity, and love. Mark is a freelance graphic designer and book marketer now living in New Jersey.

PR Griffis
is currently completing a novel about punk rock, Texas high school football, alcoholism, and the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System. He lives in Willimantic, CT with his writer wife, Mika Taylor, and Petunia Van Scampers, their crime-solving wonderpup.

Leslie McGrath
is the author of Opulent Hunger, Opulent Rage, a poetry collection; and two chapbooks, Toward Anguish and By the Windpipe. McGrath's latest book is a satiric novella in verse entitled, Out From the Pleiades. She teaches creative writing and literature at CCSU and is series editor of The Tenth Gate.

March 2015

David Capella,
is a poet and Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University. He has co-authored two widely used poetry textbooks: Teaching the Art of Poetry: The Moves and A Surge of Language: Teaching Poetry Day to Day. He was the featured poet in the 2014 summer issue of Italian Americana and released his latest novel, Kindling, in December 2015.

Ellen Litman
is the author of two novels: Mannequin Girl and The Last Chicken in America, a finalist for the 2007 LA Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the 2008 New York Public Library Young Lions Award. She is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Connecticut.

Deborah Ann Davis
is an author, educational speaker, personal trainer, and longtime educator. She's the author of the YA books Fairly Certain and the forthcoming Fairly Safe. For years, her daughter and money went to college. Deborah now invites sedentary people (i.e., writers, students, etc.) to move with her through her Wiggle Writer blog at www.DeborahAnnDavis.com.

Elephant Rock Books: Stories You Won't Forget

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